Friday, April 22, 2011

Dinkytown 4-21-11 bike death

In the morning of 4-21-11 a 25 year old woman died in an incident with a 18 wheel (or more) side dump semitruck and trailer while ridding a bike in Dinkytown. The news reporting about this has continued to trouble me. What troubles me is the wording on multiple sites that she died after "running into the truck." As if the truck was just sitting there and she rode her bike into it which killed her. What I gather from all I could read is that she and the truck were headed south on 15th past McDonalds (on their right) toward campus. She was in the right lane and he was in the left lane (or left side of the lane if there was only one lane). He "got to the intersection first" and turned right onto 4th in front of her. If she was going straight through the intersection and he turned right in a way that made her "hit" him then he clearly cut her off. She only ran into it because they were both going straight and he turned in front of her. At worst I can imagine a sinereo were she may have seen the front of the truck turn/cut in front of her and been unaware that the rear end was tracking right for her. Being more aware may have saved her life but the truck was clearly at fault for cutting her off and running her over. If another truck had been in place of the woman in the right lane as she was going straight through the intersection and this truck from the left lane cut in front of the truck going straight and hit it wouldn't the truck that turned right be at fault? I am sick as shit of biased attitudes against cyclists. The hate spewed in the comments sections of news stories is one thing but when the police and all of the media act like a truck cutting off a woman and killing her is "a woman rode her bike into a truck" it makes me want to puke.